Film Nights

Queen of Hearts

Jan 082013

Thirty-something Adele is devastated following a painful breakup. With no close friends or family, her distant cousin, Rachel, reluctantly takes her in and graciously attempts to salvage Adele’s professional and love lives. Rachel finds her a job and suggests that Adele sleep with other men to get over her heartbreak. Adele bounces from one lover to the next in search of her perfect companion but can’t escape the visage of her ex. Finally, she meets a man who may just hold the answer to her broken heart. In french and spanish with english subtitles. Rated R.

Feb 9 at 7pm
Riverviews Theatre (ground floor – entrance on Jefferson)
$5 suggested donation

Greatest Movie Ever Sold?

Previous Film Nights

Jan 042013

Director Morgan Spurlock (Super Size Me, 30 Days) examines the increased proliferation of branding in every aspect of our lives while attempting to persuade big-name brands to sponsor his irreverent exposé. Companies love to push their products, and it seems like everywhere we go, someone is trying to sell us something. But have you ever wondered what goes on behind closed doors at some of the biggest advertising agencies in the world? In this eye-opening documentary, viewers follow Spurlock as he convinces a variety of high-profile sponsors to let him pitch their products as “The Greatest,” while still maintaining complete control over his creative vision — an arrangement that’s become increasingly rare in the high-stakes entertainment industry.

Jennifer Gauthier, Professor of Communications at Randolph College will introduce this film.

Mar 16 at 7pm
Riverviews Film Theatre, Ground Floor (entrance on Jefferson)
$5 suggested donation

Piano in a Factory

Previous Film Nights

Jan 042013

Riverviews opens the 2013 monthly film series with a comedy from China, The Piano in a Factory, a film by Zhang Meng “A delightful Chinese film that artfully blends music, romance, comedy and just a little social comment… a thoroughly enjoyable movie experience!

When Chen’s estranged wife reappears asking for a divorce and custody of their daughter, the musician girl decides she will live with whoever can provide her with a piano. Chen’s struggle thus begins. When efforts to borrow money and even steal a piano fail, Chen concocts a preposterous plan – he’ll make a piano from scratch! He persuades a bunch of reluctant, but loyal, misfit friends to help him forge the instrument in a derelict factory from a heap of scrap steel. Though crude in design and tune, the factory piano awaits its first and final performance from his little girl. (mandarin with eng subtitles)

Sat. Jan 12 at 7pm
GROUND FLoor Theater (entrance on Jefferson St
$5 suggested donation

Milking the Rhino

Film Nights, Films

Apr 252012

Visiting Filmmaker: Director, David E. Simpson

Fri, April 27
7pm

The Maasai tribe of Kenya and Namibia’s Himba–two of Earth’s oldest cattle cultures–are in the midst of upheaval. Emerging from a century of ‘white man conservation’ that turned their land into game reserves and fueled resentment towards wildlife, they are now vying for a piece of the wildlife-tourism pie. Charting the collision of ancient ways and Western expectations, Milking the Rhino tells intimate, hopeful and heartbreaking stories of people facing deep cultural change.

Concrete, Steel, and Paint

Film Nights, Films, On Screen In Person, Previous Film Nights

Feb 072012

Visiting Filmmakers: Directors, Cindy Burstein and Tony Herziga

Film and event with Film-Maker: FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 10, Time 7pm

When men in a prison art class agree to collaborate with victims of crime to design a mural about healing, their views on punishment, remorse, and forgiveness collide. At times the divide seems too wide to bridge. But as the participants begin to work together, mistrust gives way to genuine moments of human contact and shared purpose. Their struggle to find creative common ground raises challenging questions about punishment, justice and reconciliation — the insights gained are reflected in the art they produce in Concrete, Steel and Paint.

The DIRECTORS will be at Riverviews to introduce their film.
Cindy Burstein is an award-winning independent producer. Formerly a community organizer, she received her MFA from Rutgers University to pursue the use of documentary film as a tool for dialogue and civic engagement. She also works with other independent filmmakers to develop public engagement initiatives for theatrical releases, broadcast premieres and educational distribution. She is a 2010 recipient of the Leeway Transformation Award, a fellowship which recognizes women artists engaged in social change.

Tony Heriza
Since co-founding the Community Media Workshop in Dayton, Ohio in 1974, Tony Heriza has been involved in many aspects of media for social change: producing, editing, teaching and working with community organizations. His work has been broadcast nationally on PBS and featured in many festivals. He is now the Director of Educational Outreach for the American Friends Service Committee and along with his co-producer, Cindy Burstein, is an active member of the New Day Film distribution co-operative.

Academy Award-Winning documentary

Films, Previous Film Nights

Nov 282011

Coproduced by the U.S.Holocaust Memorial Museum Research Institute,this Academy Award-winning documentary relates the harrowing story of Gerda Weissmann Klein and her journey of survival and remembering both before and after the war.

Gerda Weissmann Klein survived a six-year ordeal as a victim of Nazi cruelty. Rendered in a deceptively simple yet extraordinarily powerful manner, this film explores the effects Weissman’s experience had on the rest of her life. By the end of the war she had lost her parents, brother, home, possessions, and community; even the dear friends she made in the labor camps, with whom she had shared so many hardships, were dead. A journey of survival through one of the most devastating events in the history of mankind.

Gerda Weissmann Klein will be visiting Randolph College this Thursday. She will discuss the work of her Foundation which promotes tolerance, respect and the empowerment of students throughout the world. This event is co-sponsored by Randolph College and The Holocaust Education Foundation of Central Virginia..

Beatboxing–The Fifth Element of Hip Hop

CINEviews 2011, Film Nights, On Screen In Person, Previous Film Nights

Sep 232011

Beatboxing:The Fifth Element of Hip-Hop

Friday, October 21st at Riverviews

This Friday, Riverviews will screen the film, Beatboxing: The 5th Element of Hip-Hop and welcome filmmaker, Angela Viscido.

Doors open at 6:30 with live beatboxing performances and graffiti painting. Enjoy a drink and meet the artists and performers before the film.

The film will screen at 7pm and will be followed by a
question and answer session with the filmmaker.

beatbox

synopsis:
In the late 70’s, a youth culture evolved in the poorer parts of New York which combined several disciplines under the name of Hip Hop. The four classic elements of graffiti, DJing, breakdancing, and rapping, were enhanced by a fifth element called ‘Beatboxing’. From the hardship of poverty and the lack of instruments, a pioneer was inspired to imitate drum rhythms with his mouth – his brilliance creating the term ‘Human Beatbox’. BEATBOXING features artists from all over the world demonstrating their amazing techniques.

about the filmmaker:
Producer, Angela Viscido was born and raised in Wales and has been a resident of New York City for the past 22 years, Angela is a videographer, editor, entrepreneur and the President of Eclectrix, Inc., a full service multimedia specializing in live performances. She has captured creative icons such as Hiram Bullock, The Drifters, Bernard Purdie and Lou Marini, Toshi Regan, Citizen Cope and others.

Suggested donation: $10 general admission, $5 for students
434-847-7277
Riverviews

Out In Silence

Film Nights, Films, On Screen In Person, Previous Film Nights

Aug 072011

The announcement of filmmaker Joe Wilson’s wedding to another man ignites a firestorm of controversy and a quest for change in the small Pennsylvania hometown he left long ago. Drawn back by a plea for help from the mother of a gay teen being tormented at school, Wilson takes viewers on an exhilarating journey through love, hate, and understanding in rural America.

OUT IN THE SILENCE breaks the mold of the traditional documentary. It is not solely observational, not a memoir, and not a news piece. As filmmaker, as protagonist, as insider and outsider, Wilson uses the camera to empower, to challenge, to confront, and to look beneath the veneer of the fragile balance of order in his conservative hometown.

JOE WILSON, Co-Producer/Director will be at Riverviews to introduce this film (details: TBA) Joe Wilson got involved in documentary filmmaking through his social activism on human rights issues. Frustrated by the limitations of traditional organizing and advocacy and the constraints of his role as a program officer at a private foundation, he picked up a camera with hopes of reaching broader audiences with stories that would inform and compel people to act.

DEAN HAMER: Scientist turned filmmaker Dean Hamer became interested in journalism and filmmaking as a result of being a frequent guest on television news shows to discuss his research on AIDS, human sexuality and behavior genetics. Convinced that there was a better way to communicate the complex scientific and social ideas raised by these topics, he decided to try his own hand at turning these stories into compelling documentaries.

Hamer’s debut film THE PREACHER AND THE POET was a winner of the PBS/Independent Lens Online Shorts Festival. In collaboration with Qwaves.com partner Joe Wilson he has produced over a dozen pieces for national cable television and won numerous awards. He has also consulted for many documentary and news productions and written three award-winning nonfiction books including The Science of Desire, which was a New York Times Book of the Year.

view the trailer or read more at: http://wpsu.org/outinthesilence/

Film screening and Filmmaker’s Talk: $10 suggested donation, $5 students

Proceed and Be Bold

Films, On Screen In Person, Previous Film Nights

Jul 302011

Visiting Filmmaker: Director, Laura Zinger

Fri, March 30
7pm

Amos Paul Kennedy Jr. is a printing and book artist, but he wasn’t always an artist. He used to live a middle class life like many other Americans, with a family and a job as a computer programmer at an international telecommunications company. Today, he is located in Alabama, and is widely known for his controversial posters and book art. In Proceed and Be Bold!, we follow Amos through art galleries, and meet the people, in an effort to learn why he creates his charged works of art, and how people react.